A Change of Heart
by Seeker of the Charter
Summary: The chuunin exams are perilous and many do not make it through alive. However, the friendships and alliances formed from them are strong. When one young genin meets someone in the forest who will change her life forever, she begins to realize the truth
1. Prologue: Loss of Memory

The hot afternoon sun fell on the Forest of Death. It marked the end of the first half hour of the second test in the chuunin exams. Many teams had already fallen to the dangers that lurked in the shadowy trees and team number 18 was no exception.

Barely fifteen minutes into the exam they had fallen prey to another team. Team 18 was anything but weak, but they were caught so off guard that the other team gained an unfair advantage over them. There was a brief battle and the leader of team 18 fell at the enemy's hands. Another took a hard blow to the head and was forgotten by her pursuers. The third was forced to flee with the horrible knowledge that she couldn't go back for her surviving friend without being killed herself; her jutsu was no good in close combat. The only thing she could do was pray that the enemy would not go back to finish what they'd intended.

And they didn't. Perhaps it was because they couldn't find where the unconscious girl's body had fallen, or perhaps they'd just forgotten her: Only fate knew.

As the afternoon sun filtered through the trees, the girl awoke. She raised a hand to her aching head and it came away bloody. Her usually perfect red-blonde hair was matted and tangled with the substance. She'd taken quite a hit, that much was obvious, only she couldn't recall how. She wracked her mind, trying to remember something…anything about what had happened.

Nothing came.

Raising her eyes and squinting against the bright sunlight, the girl tried to gain some insight as to where she was. She could see trees and several patches of low lying, gnarled shrubbery, but further in the shadows beneath them, nothing. She was in a forest. That much was clear to her.

Groaning at the pain in her head, the girl stumbled to her feet. She would find no answers here. Her only choice was to move on and pray she could find recover her memories elsewhere. For the next fifteen minutes she stumbled aimlessly through the trees. She had no idea where she was or where she was going. She hadn't managed to call to mind a single detail about herself, her life, or her goals. She couldn't even remember her own name.

As the minutes passed and the sun shone down through the trees on her, a shining ornament on the girl's wrist caught her attention. It was a cloth of some sort that had a silvery metal plate fastened to it. There was a symbol etched into the plate's shimmering surface...a dark design amidst the sunlight resting on the metal. The girl looked at the wristband and the symbol curiously. It seemed familiar.

The symbol was shaped like an hourglass, wide on the top and bottom and pinched in at the middle. At the very top of that shape rested a small rectangle. Yes, it definitely looked like an hourglass.

Hourglasses usually held sand the girl mused as she looked at it. Yes, sand…the symbol represented sand: A village from…the desert? That was it—The Village Hidden in the Sand. She was from a ninja village in the Land of Wind. The girl smiled as she continued to walk. She'd managed to remember at least one thing. That was a good sign. If she could remember that then she would hopefully begin to recall other things as well.


	2. Chapter 1: An Encounter in the Forest

The minutes wore on and the girl wandered deeper into the forest. Very few of her memories were returning to her save ones of blood and killing that had obviously occurred most recently. Distraught, the girl was about to stop for a rest when someone…or something…passed through the trees above her head.

Hoping that it would be someone that she could follow out of the forest, the girl abandoned all thoughts of rest and jumped into the treetops to follow. There were three people ahead of her, two boys and a girl, or so it looked. She kept her distance from them, staying just close enough that she could see them, yet far enough away to not attract their attention. Soon the trio stopped short and the girl was forced to take cover in the thick branches of a nearby tree.

"Gaara, we need to stop for a few minutes," Said the only female in the group, a tall, blonde girl with a hard face. She was leaning on what looked like a giant fan. She turned to the smallest in the party, a young red-haired boy who was carrying a large gourd on his back. He stared back at her, his face expressionless and his sad, blue eyes seemingly bored. "Kankuro and I don't have your stamina."

"Yeah…just for a moment or two." The third person in the group, presumably Kankuro, added. He wore an entirely black outfit, with some sort of white, gauze-wrapped mummy on his back, and a black cat-eared headband hiding his hair.

"Fine, but we're not staying long." The red-haired boy, Gaara, replied. He didn't change his bored expression. The girl switched her gaze to him. Besides the gourd on his back, he wore baggy cargo pants, a black t-shirt with a net shirt underneath, and a white sash across his chest. The girl squinted as she looked at his face. He had a tattoo on his forehead, just under the tips of his red bangs, but she couldn't tell what it was of.

Eventually she stopped trying to find out. The strain she put on her eyes by squinting was causing her head to ache where it had been hit. With a soft, almost imperceptible sigh, she leaned back against the trunk of the tree she was in and watched the trio with interest; the red-haired one called Gaara in particular. There was something about him that drew her gaze, though she couldn't place her finger on it. He seemed lonely and sad about something, and yet he tried to hide it from the world. _What is it that made him this way_? The girl wondered as she tilted her head to the side. She looked at the boy's—Gaara's eyes, hoping to find an answer there. That was when she realized that he was looking back at her.

She started, almost lost her balance, and sat there gripping the tree wondering if she should run or not. After several moments of inner debate the girl decided to stay where she was. She was only one person and not too much of a threat; besides, she had no reason to be afraid—as far as she knew her companions were dead—who would notice if she was too?

With that thought in mind she continued to stare fearlessly into the boy's cold, yet sad blue eyes and he continued to stare back. Barely a minute of this had passed when the boy stood and leapt one tree branch closer to her. "Where are you going, Gaara?" The tall, blonde girl asked.

"I'll be back, Temari." Gaara replied, ignoring the question completely. He leapt to another tree branch and then another until he was out of his teammates' sight completely and right before the girl who'd been watching him. She stared up at him in silence, unsure of what to do.

"Um…" She managed before Gaara cut her off.

"What are you doing hiding in there?" Gaara asked as he continued to stare back at her. "If you're going to try to attack me then just do it. If not, go away before I kill you."

The girl rose from her sitting position on the tree branch and stood before him. She smiled despite Gaara's threat, and decided to ask for directions anyway. "I'm not here to attack you," She told him. "I'm lost."

"I won't help you." Gaara replied bluntly. Soon sand began to rise out of the top of the gourd on his back and float through the air towards the girl. It began to twine about her legs, up her torso, and finally around her shoulders. "I will kill you."

The sand tightened around the girl's body and lifted her off the ground and still she didn't flinch. Her expression remained in that soft, sad smile. "I'm not afraid to die." She said as she looked him straight in the eyes. "And I'm not afraid of you."

Gaara's eyes narrowed as her statement struck something within the deep reaches of his soul. "What did you say?"

"I said, 'I'm not afraid of you.'" The girl responded. Her tone was as soft and gentle as her crystal blue gaze. It was so unlike the tones of fear and hatred that he'd grown accustomed to since his childhood. Her voice echoed in his head, saying the simple phrase over and over again and Gaara's resolve to kill her faltered. Somehow, he could tell that she was telling the truth. No one had treated him that way in a long, long time.

The girl could feel the sand loosen around her and soon she stood on solid ground once again. "What is your name?" Gaara asked her.

"I-I don't remember." The girl answered. "I don't remember much of anything before waking up in this forest."

"Well, whoever you are," Gaara said coolly. "Go away. I don't want to find you following me anymore."


	3. Chapter 2: The Stubborn Child Kataiko

**Finally! Another chaper up! I know its very short, but each chapter revolves around one certain thing that happens, therefore some will be much shorter than others. Anyway, sorry to keep you waiting so long and I hope you enjoy it.**

**All OCs so far belong to me and my friend Tsukiko.**

**All things Naruto belong to Masashi Kishimoto, not me. **

* * *

The girl ignored Gaara's words. She knew she needed to get out of the forest and she had no doubt that following Gaara's team would achieve that goal. Keeping out of sight, she followed the sand shinobi for nearly fifteen minutes without being noticed. When the group finally stopped in a clearing ahead of her, she feared she'd been spotted. Then she saw another group of shinobi standing in their way. 

There was some brief conversation that was hard to hear from the distance between the two groups and the girl, and then Gaara released sand from the gourd on his back. Just as it had done with the girl, the sand twined about the man's body, rendering him immobile. Unlike the situation earlier that day however, Gaara used the sand to crush his victim's body and a spray of blood rained down on the clearing. Gaara didn't hesitate to let the other two shinobi share in their leaders' fate. There was a very short argument between Kankuro and Gaara then, before finally they started on their way again.

As they traveled along, Gaara fell to the back of the group. Temari and Kankuro cast questioning glances in his direction, but knew better than to ask what he was doing. If he wanted to fall behind, he undoubtedly had a reason and would catch up again soon. It was probably safer for them if they just let him be. Gaara knew this was how they felt and therefore didn't think twice about stopping to confront the girl that he noticed was still following them. "Why are you still following me?" Gaara growled as the girl skidded to a halt just out of his sight. "Are you begging to die?"

The girl stepped out of the bushes and stood before Gaara. Almost immediately Gaara noted that the girl's blue eyes still held the same gentleness and compassion towards him as they had earlier. He didn't understand it. He knew without a doubt that she'd seen him kill those shinobi from the Rain village just minutes before. What's more, this girl was from his village—he'd seen her once or twice with one of Kankuro's friends. So why didn't she hate him?

Gaara's thoughts were cut short as the girl answered, "I just need to get out of the forest. Right now, following you is my only option. Kill me if you want, I don't care." Her voice was calm and even and not a single sign of fear showed in her eyes. Gaara considered that perhaps the loss of memory she'd mentioned earlier had something to do with why she wasn't terrified of him, but even that didn't explain why she wasn't frightened after seeing him murder those three shinobi. Between the look in her eyes and the amount of confusion she caused him, Gaara still couldn't bring himself to kill this girl. She stood before him—waiting for a response—her eyes still staring gently into his and he could do nothing. When he didn't respond to her comment after several moments, she prodded, "Well?"

"You are such a stubborn little brat. I'll tell you one more time: Stop following me, Kataiko." Gaara commanded. He jumped into the nearest tree and yelled back. "Next time I won't hesitate to kill you."

"Kataiko?" The girl questioned.

Gaara paused briefly and glared back at her. "I needed to call you something." He said bluntly. And then he was gone.


End file.
